The Red Ball over the Clay Substation
At 5:16 p.m. on 9 November 1965, the moment the great Northeast blackout began, a flight instructor coming in to land at Syracuse reported a huge red ball of brilliant light, about a hundred feet across, just over the power lines at the Clay substation. Other fireballs and discs were reported that evening from Syracuse to Pennsylvania. The Condon Report found no UFO connection: it followed the Federal Power Commission in tracing the blackout to a backup relay on line Q29BD at the Sir Adam Beck No. 2 plant in Ontario. This is the record of what was reported and how it was explained, not a verdict on what was over the lines.
◆ THE SHORT VERSION
- The Red Ball over the Clay Substation is a reported UAP case in Near the Clay substation, north of Syracuse, New York, USA, 9 November 1965, about 5:16 p.m. EST.
- A flight instructor landing at Syracuse reported a huge red ball of brilliant light, about a hundred feet across, over the power lines at the Clay substation at the moment the 1965 Northeast blackout began, according to John G. Fuller's account.
- Four others reported the same thing, Fuller wrote, among them Syracuse's deputy aviation commissioner, Robert C. Walsh.
- The Condon Report traced the blackout to a backup relay set too low on line Q29BD at the Sir Adam Beck No. 2 plant in Ontario and found no UFO connection.
- Philip Klass suggested that corona discharge on high-tension lines could make glowing plasma balls of the kind people reported.
- For this case Fractured Realities holds 3 distinct sources, 1 corroborating primary document and 2 distinct claimants on its resolved list.
- The archive grades it L4 · OFFICIAL RECORD — a released government record names who saw it, the top of our scale, though no independent testimony sits beside that record.
Counts are resolved totals of what sources say, computed 2026-10-03; the reported details above are claims in the record, not findings. A record of reports, not a verdict on what happened.
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